WASHINGTON
 With America's allies likely to rebuff requests to send more combat
troops to Afghanistan, many Pentagon officials want President Barack
Obama to alter U.S. policy and seek NATO help only in other areas such
as police training and support for democratization, defense officials
said.

Obama called for more NATO combat troops while he
was campaigning for the presidency. But the officials said that NATO
allies are unlikely to defy the majorities of their citizens who are
opposed to deeper involvement in the war, and he'd squander political
capital on an almost certainly futile bid to convince them otherwise.

"The
problem is that all politics is local. No constituents in those
countries want to be there anymore," a U.S. defense official told
McClatchy, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't
authorized to comment publicly.

Afghanistan was a major topic Wednesday of Obama's first meeting in the Pentagon with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"We're going to have some difficult decisions that we're going to have to make" on Afghanistan, Obama said later.

The
president has pledged to refocus the fight against terrorism from Iraq
to Afghanistan and endorsed a request by senior U.S. commanders to
increase the 30,000-strong U.S. contingent by another 30,000 troops.
Most would be sent to southern Afghanistan.

Many U.S.
military officials have become disillusioned with the growing
reluctance of NATO allies to allow their forces to engage in major
combat operations in the Taliban strongholds of southern and eastern
Afghanistan.

Some American officers contemptuously refer
to the 30,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force,
or ISAF, as "I Suck At Fighting" or "I Saw Americans Fight."

ISAF
comprises some 30,000 troops from the 26 NATO members and 15 other
countries. The 19,000-strong U.S. contingent is by far the largest. A
separate 17,000-strong U.S. force concentrates on counter-terrorism
operations.

During his campaign, Obama made a drive for
more NATO troops a key plank of his plan for ending the war in
Afghanistan, which last year saw its worst violence since the 2001 U.S.
invasion.

"We haven't given up yet (on seeking more
allied combat forces), but there is a certain realization that there is
only so much water you can squeeze from that stone," said a second U.S.
defense official, who asked not to be further identified to avoid
speaking ahead of the new administration.

The U.S.
defense officials said there are critical roles that ISAF should
continue playing, such as providing security in northern and western
areas where the Taliban have little support, training Afghan security
forces and promoting reconstruction

"We recognize the
limitations of what they can provide and need to make the maximum
within those parameters," said a senior U.S. military officer, who
requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

Obama
is awaiting recommendations for a new Afghanistan strategy from the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S.
military operations in Afghanistan.

The administration
must decide whether to forgo requests for more NATO combat forces as
part of its new strategy by the 26-nation alliance's annual summit,
which is to be co-hosted by Germany and France in April.

Gates
provided a clue to the administration's thinking at a hearing Tuesday
before the Senate Armed Services Committee, when he was asked what more
NATO could do to help contain the al Qaida-backed Taliban insurgency
and stabilize Afghanistan.

He made no mention of seeking
additional allied combat forces. Instead, he said the administration
would like nations contributing to ISAF to lift restrictions, known as
caveats, on the use of their forces and to provide additional equipment.

Vice
President Joe Biden and National Security Adviser James Jones, a former
NATO commander, however, could lay out the administration's ideas at an
annual European security conference in Munich, Germany, in February.

The allies should also send more trainers and funds to build the Afghan police and the Afghan National Army, he said.

"I
think that there are three areas where our allies need to do more. I
think that there is a need for them to provide more caveat-free forces.
I think that there is a need for them to provide more civilian support
in terms of training and civil society," Gates said.

Last year, Gates pleaded for more ISAF troops at the annual NATO summit, but came away with only a single French battalion.

Robert
Hunter, a former U.S. ambassador to the alliance, said he's advising
administration officials against seeking more NATO troops because of
the potential for "early difficulties within NATO."

Instead,
he said, European governments should be asked to redouble their
commitments to fighting illegal narcotics trafficking, training the
Afghan police, building the country's legal system, and boosting good
governance under a 2006 accord known as the Afghanistan Compact.

A
prominent senior European official should be named to coordinate their
efforts, said Hunter, a senior adviser at the RAND Corp., a policy
research organization.